This program is outstanding! The effects are wonderful and, believe it or not, it has only crashed once.

I am running it along side Unity (also amazing software, if you think rebirth is cool, give unity mixed with digital performer a shot) and it works beautifully. It is very responsive and the interface is wonderful if you have a 17" monitor or bigger. I am running mine on 2 15" monitors and it runs flawlessly.

Definately consider this if you are looking for some professional quality recording gear and don't want to spend thousands. MOTU gets knocked for not supporting pc's, and I hear lots of people complain about how expensive macs are, but look at it this way: All the components in macs are of the highest quality. You do no need to buy any additional cards to get this software to run beautifully. If you go and buy a comperably benchmarked pc with the same quality components, the pc will cost nearly the same as a mac, and you still have to buy a new sound card. There is a reason these guys have stuck with mac.

On another note, MOTU has it's own user interface... you don't notice you are on a mac when you use it because it has totally customized menues etc to utilize all of its functions to the fullest. I did audio production on a t.v. commercial and produced a cd (which sold a little under 3000 copies in a city of 43,000) for a friend using only digital performer 2.5 from start to the gold master disk. When used in conjunction with the MOTU 2408 I/O you can record 24 tracks simultaniously for about $1400 to $1600 total. You can't beat that.

There is a paradigm shift in sequencer software right now due to the recent drop in price of opcodes software. I have used both in professional situations and opcode feels clunky and slow compared to performer. I was also able to get much more consistent sound using accoustic instruments (ie. guitar, vocals, and an old upright piano)using performer. The timbre of the sound was different every time I used opcode. Opcode is sequencer software with digital audio capabilities, digital performer is audio software with implemented midi capabilities.

It's also awesome if you work with samples much because all you have to do is save them as aiff files or sd2 files, drag them into peformer, tell performer what tempo they are (or let it tell you) and then if you need to change the tempo, just select the sample, and tell it what tempo it needs to be. It will automatically do it for you without changeing the pitch, unless you want to change the pitch, it will do that too. Or, if you want to change the pitch, but not the amount of time it plays, it will do that as well. Too much to say, go check out the web site.

Bad Points
You really need the 2408 hardware to process the effects real-time. Otherwise there is a millisecond delay that really screws you up if you are playing something that has to be right on. I have heard this is fixable, but I haven't learned how yet. As of now I have to record dry and then used the effects during playback (making it difficult to get shy people to sing very confidently, it's easier when you can bury them in reverb so they sing louder. My other complaint is the amount of screens on the window, you seriously need a big monitor or multiple small ones to run this program efficiently, especially if you use it with a software synth like unity. I run it on 2 15" monitors and it fills them both. Another bad thing is I don't believe there is a hardware mixing board out for this yet. The software one is good, but I like real faders and as of now I am using a pair of EMU launch pads to control my faders in perfomer (it looks ghetto, I want something that says mackie on it ;)) Anyway, there is so much more, but I figured I would put my two cents in.

Mark of the Unicorn Digital Performer 2.5 Specifications:

Digital IOs:

Busses/Subgroups:
unlimited virtual bussingMax tracks:
running on a G3/300mhz I can get 32 tracksMaximum Resolution:48khz@24bits
EQ: can us up to an 8 band parametric eq (also supports just about any other kind you can come up with, totally customizable) Dynamics: compressor, expander, limiter, gate, echo, flange, chorus, some oddities, and one of the best reverbs I have ever worked with